Kisses, hugs and night night!

I cannot believe how quickly Harper changes! Here are some recent new tricks!

In the past month or so she has started giving kisses (big open mouth wet kisses that we love) and giving hugs (and patting us as she hugs)!  She gives hugs and kisses pretty freely and a lot of times just leans in for a kisses in the middle of playing then just gets back to her toys. 

The other night she told Chris "night night" as I took her to bed, we then made her say it about 20 more times!  

Harper gets so excited when we go see friends at a Daytona sporting event. Right when we get there she just walks from one friend to another, waves, hugs, plays peek-a-boo, etc. I don't even know if Harper or our friends, who work with Chris at Daytona, know I am there; they all love each other so much!

Finally, the other exciting development was when Harper could decipher between her baby, a book and a ball. I layed out all three and when I told her to pick one she got it right everytime! Super fun!

Hugs for baby

Reading with dad

Playing with Cindy, Kim, Al and Katie

...7 Months later

Nothing like a 7 month gap in blogging!  Don't worry nothing wonderful or great has happened in the past 7 months....oh wait, actually since the last blog there have been tons of changes and there is no way I could ever recap it all.  Long story short the last post about smiles and giggles pretty much continues to sum up life with Miss Harper.
She is an absolute angel and a joyful child.  Whether it was learning to sit up, crawl, roll over,  laugh, talk, walk, whatever... it really has been a blast.  She even handled teething like a champ!
I know not every child is as easy going as Harper and we don't take one day for granted!  She is with me everyday all day as I work from home and really we have so much fun together.  Honestly, running errands is one of my favorite things to do, because Harper loves it and smiles and laughs the whole time.  People stop us all the time and I am just a proud mom at all times!  How did we get so lucky?
She just recently started walking (official first steps were on Sept. 11, 2013) and that has been incredible to watch!  It feels like she is growing up so quickly, but I am so happy for her to be learning new things and I love watching the efforts she makes to grow and learn.
Plans are already in motion for the First Birthday Party which will be at a beachfront park in Ormond Beach!  I am really excited to have family and friends all together to celebrate our girl.
So I am going to try to start blogging from my phone, so I can keep up better with life events.  They will likely be short and sweet posts, but that's better than the 7 month gap!

At work with dad

at work with mom

photo session with friend, Carissa Miller

Little traveler headed to CO

Traveler

At airport with Honey & Papa Newt

First time in a pool!

Thumb-sucker - only to fall asleep

Smiles & Giggles

I can't really think of anything better than making Harper laugh.  It has been so much fun that as everyday passes Harper becomes more and more expressive, reactive and just fun to be with!  She smiles all the time and smiles at all kinds of things like, Chris and I looking or smiling at her, any silly faces or noises, Camden jumping up on her bed, her "toys" basically things that light up and play music, Facetime, etc.  Here are some of my favorite smiley pics and would upload a laughing video, but my videos never upload, working on that though!

 

Three's a crowd

The other day I ran to take a quick shower.  Chris was working on the house, of course, so I took Harper with me and just put her in the bouncer in the bathroom.  I closed the door and got in the shower.  30 seconds after being in the shower I hear the door slam open and I see Camden (who no longer let's me leave her sight) has made her self comfortable next to Harper so now I have 4 eyes on me as I shower.  Then Chris was looking for something and so he had to come in and ask me a question.  That's when I realized that I actually had an audience for this lovely shower; I should have charged admission.  A mother of multiple kids must truly never ever be alone!
I'm learning this motherhood business as I go!  I would way rather have an audience for every shower than miss one minute of this new life!

Christmas and Construction

This Christmas was very different from last Christmas.  Really there was nothing familiar about this Christmas other than exchanging gifts and still being with my best friend.  We stayed in Florida this year instead of traveling to see family.  With Harper being only 7 weeks old it didn't seem wise to put her on a plane in the middle of winter, plus we were so lucky to have so much family come for or around Harper's birth it just seemed right to stay home.  

Chris was off work for a couple of weeks so instead of taking it easy on his vacation he worked his tail off to demo our kitchen and create a beautiful new kitchen!  I will do a different post all about the project!  He was working around the clock and I did what I could working around sweet Harper's schedule.  

As far as Christmas goes, Harper was totally spoiled by our family!  She got toys, clothes, books and she made Christmas so much more fun for Chris and I!  I had lots of fun this year, and can't wait for next year!  She makes everything so much more special!

Harper excited to go meet Santa!

She was so excited she fell asleep
before meeting him!  Santa was so sweet!

A little break from construction to
chat with Harper!

Santa came to our house!

Santa came and Chris was still working
on the kitchen! Yes on christmas eve!

Cookie Day!

The ladies that work at Daytona State College with Chris have had a tradition for 15+ years and this year Harper got the invite for this fun day!
It starts by sending Cindy our 3 recipes and she does all the shopping; there were a total of 6 of us there so you can imagine how much shopping Cindy does to have all the ingredients ready to go!  We arrive at Kim's house around 8am and then we bake all day, drink mimosas, listen to Christmas music and taste cookies!!
It is such a special tradition they have started and I just really enjoy getting to spend quality time with them.  This year we were spoiled even more because Kim had a massage therapist come to her house and we each were given 30 minute massages!!!  Yes, that's right!!

So I walk into Kim's house at 8am with Harper, to see her dining table and counters covered with baking ingredients, coffee brewing, christmas music playing, mimosas, then Harper is showered with extra little gifts, Alison brings everyone a Christmas wine glass (she saved the one decorated with "Hope" on it), I got a massage and while I was getting my massage I could hear everyone going nuts over Harper has she was smiling for them and spent most of the day munching on cookies.  Oh, and Shannon had ordered lunch so we had yummy wraps ready for lunch.  Yes, it was a magical day!

I can home with 22 different types of cookies totally about 200 cookies!  Delicious!!

It's all about the outfit!

Off to Cookie day! (Thanks to my aunt Jan for this Naughty/Nice bib)

Cindy and Harper

Shannon and Harper

Everyone and our mess!

Katie and Harper

Harper taking a little snooze after some baking!

Heaven!

Before getting pregnant I was always surprised at how many people, some strangers and some friends, would say Enjoy life now before kids because it will never be the same.  There would often be a negative connotation inferred and so I just took that at face value, it happened enough that I started to believe that being a parent was more difficult than anything else.  People told us to sleep, go out, travel, etc.  

Well, I think we were blessed with a little angel because she has been a dream and being a parent to Harper has been heavenly.  I totally understand that we are lucky with Harper and that she has just been an easier baby and not all babies are that way; we are not taking that for granted at all!  We look at each other all the time and admit that she has made it easy on us so far!  We have been hesitant to say anything, because we don't want to jenks anything, but then I thought that was just stupid...we should love this, talk about it and enjoy it and if things get hard down the road then we will remember these smooth times fondly!

I never imagined I would love a baby this much and I just want to snuggle with her all the time!!